


dirt, dust, and ashes (and other things in small pieces)

by ZoeBug



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Canon Era, Drabble, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-17
Updated: 2015-06-17
Packaged: 2018-04-04 19:31:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4150071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZoeBug/pseuds/ZoeBug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I think about that kind of thing a lot, lately.</p>
            </blockquote>





	dirt, dust, and ashes (and other things in small pieces)

**Author's Note:**

> Just a super short sad little canon drabble.  
> Michelle made me promise not to post anything sad on Marco's birthday so I waited and it's past midnight so have fun, kids.

You always used to get such a pitying look in your eyes when I told you I could always tell when I was dreaming.

Isn't that sad, you'd ask. That you know it's not real.

Not when it's a nightmare, I'd say and you'd glance away and your eyebrows would twist upwards in the middle like they always did.

I don't know if it's better to think you're living a dream or know you're not living a nightmare, you'd muse as you'd lay back on your elbows on my bunk beside me. I'd watch your eyes as they tracked the drifting path of dust motes in the sunbeams streaming through the window.

I'm still not sure. Cause I fall asleep to echoes of your voice and dream about the way your smile felt on the back of my neck and _know_.

And I wake to silence in the barracks and too much space above my head where your bunk used to sag down under your weight above me and I'll watch the dust motes drifting in the sunbeams.

Armin told me once that dust is actually lots of dead skin cells from the people who've been in that place and I watch them wondering how many of those dots used to be you.

I think about that kind of thing a lot, lately. Skin cells and dust and things. I wonder how many microscopic pieces of you still slide between the sheets of my bed at night, how many are pressed into the seams of my uniform, or caught in the strands of my hair.

You can't picture quite how horrified I was when that occurred to me after I showered the first time since you died.

I'm scared to move anything, you know.

Because everything looks like it did when you were still here. The beds and the bunkhouse and the training ground and the view of the sun shining through the window from my bunk. And I'm terrified that every time I move a book or a blanket or your extra pair of boots from under my bed where you kicked them off last week―that bit by bit I'm erasing the last pieces of you.

I'm scared to touch things too.

I remember how you gasped and whispered my name that night when I raked my nails down your back, how hot your breath was against my neck. I wonder if there's still pieces of you there, too, under my nails anymore.

There's a fading bruise above my collar bone from the frantic grazing of your teeth that gets fainter each day. I keep pressing on it until it hurts because I never want to see that patch of skin pale again.

Lots of things feel like they're fading.

Things keep getting fuzzy. I now tread the world as if through a cloud of dust. Or ashes.

I think about ashes a lot lately, too. Like how the smoke from your pyre must have blown some of yours all around the grounds. You must be everywhere.

It fucking feels like it. Like I'm coated in a layer of you that smells like fire and feels like the rasping grate of sand.

Every time I hear the crunch of dirt under my boots I wonder how much of it used to be you.

You always would say it was sad that I knew when I was dreaming and I didn't understand why when you would wake up tossing and turning from nightmares about missing your brother back at home. I wonder if he does that now, thinking about you. I do.

I think I get why you thought it was so sad.

Cause now I'm living one and I'm so _painfully_ aware it's not the kind you wake up from that I can barely breathe.

The only time my lungs feel like they can fully expand is when I press the shirt you lent me to my face and inhale. I wonder how many breaths I have left until it's just a shirt again. Until the inhale feels like its full of dust that isn't made of you and smells nothing like the heat of your skin.

Did I tell you I fell while training on the pitch yesterday? One of my wires missed the target. I think a grain of sand got in my eye.

They thought I got hurt, you know. Because I didn't get up. That maybe I'd broken something.

They found me crying with my face pressed into the dirt there. It was gritty and hot against my lips and tasted like burning and I couldn't help but think this was the closest I'd ever get to kissing you again.

Isn't that sad, you'd ask. That you know it's not real.

I try to reply through dirt grinding between my teeth and the choking dryness of dust in the air.

It's sad because I know it _is_. And that you aren't anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> [fanfic/podfic blog](http://zoe-bug.tumblr.com/) | [personal](http://xiexiecaptain.tumblr.com/) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/xiexiecaptain/)


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